In the Aude, a landscape devastated by fires and a community grateful to firefighters from all over France

Everywhere, across the blackened lands of the Corbières, small signs of thanks are displayed to the two thousand firefighters who worked, for five days and as many nights, to contain an unprecedented fire. From Tuesday, August 5 to Saturday, August 9, the flames spread across 17,000 hectares, killed one woman, injured around twenty people, and destroyed 35 homes. Firefighters came from all over France, supporting departmental teams from Aude and neighboring departments, to combat this unusually intense enemy.

As soon as the first columns arrived, solidarity was organized to find them places to sleep, between the fight missions, and to offer them meals. "We spoke on Tuesday 5th, in the evening, on Facebook, saying that we would welcome the evacuees, the people whose houses had burned and the firefighters, of course," says Fanou Belvèze, an elected representative from Fabrezan (Aude), who normally runs a real estate agency.

In his village, located a few kilometers from Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, where the fire destroyed houses, the town hall opened the village hall in the early hours of the blaze. The place, located opposite the café and the newsagent, quickly became the epicenter of solidarity throughout the area, with water distributions to residents when the taps ran dry and a huge canteen for the firefighters.

Every day, at noon and in the evening, a good hundred of them stopped there to regain their strength and find comfort. The fight was difficult and perilous. Several trucks were trapped by the flames. It was even necessary for a Canadair to cool the edge of the forest where several trucks were located so that they could escape the flames that surrounded them, on the evening of August 5, at the height of the fire. "They deserve all our gratitude and it is normal to offer them hot meals," insisted Fanou Belvèze as early as August 6.

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